


currents

by athousandvictories



Series: the queen's gambit [1]
Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Banter, F/M, Feelings Resentfully Felt, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rivals to Lovers to Rival Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:48:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28065732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandvictories/pseuds/athousandvictories
Summary: Benny spreads his hands. “And? Still think so?”“I think it's intriguing to watch you two circle each other. Like sharks.” He flashes a grin.Benny had felt a smouldering dislike for Townes, before. Now he can fairly say he hates him.Antagonistic flirting, mostly. In which we are all Townes, rolling our eyes.
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Series: the queen's gambit [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055918
Comments: 30
Kudos: 262





	currents

They hadn't spoken much, after the phone call that had probably cost Benny two weeks of groceries and three parking tickets. In fact, they'd spoken once, two days after it. He’d wished her a quiet congratulations, she’d thanked him, and they'd sat there on the line in silence until he'd said something like “I guess you're flying back to Kentucky then, yeah?” (yeah) and after another pause, “We're proud of you, kid." Then he'd hung up. 

Beth had not expected him to gush; neither had she expected disappointing platitudes. _We_. Who the hell did that mean? Harry and the twins hadn’t been on the line this time. _We_ was America, for all she knew. _We_ could have been capitalists the world over, if that didn't probably exclude Benny.

~~~~

They don’t come face-to-face until Dallas--and _face-to-face_ is perhaps too generous. They orbit each other like binary stars, always distant and never separate. Each with their own rings of reporters and admirers and little kids with newspaper-clippings and curled magazines in their sweaty fists. Never nearer than twelve yards, six tables, thirty burgundy squares on the chessboard that is the hotel carpet. 

At breakfast (on Day 2), it is a heart-pounding thirty-two squares. Beth is in a booth near the staircase with her _Reporters Fuck Off_ sunglasses near at hand, clutching her Earl Grey in a death grip (eighty squares away, the bartender is handing someone a mimosa). Benny is at a table with someone who must find him impressive enough to ignore the way he's dipping untoasted white bread in apple juice.

Thirty-two squares puts Beth close enough to feel the visceral wrongess of that combination and wrinkle her nose. Though, as she understands it, damaging food beyond repair is how Benny simulates the diet he subsists on the rest of the time.

They take a polite level of interest in each other, when the possibility of _each other_ begins to loom (on Day 3). For Beth, this means nothing at all; she is on a tier by herself and she has learned the best escape routes the hotel has to offer. For Benny, it means offering a concise summary, when he is asked, of what they both know will happen (she’ll beat him, but he’ll give her a fight).

As it happens, they don’t face off at all. A visiting Bulgarian takes Benny out in the semi-final (on Day 4), and he spends the rest of his stay in Texas licking his wounds (and finding somebody to lick them for him, Beth thinks waspishly, when she sees him sitting in the lobby with a skinny blonde halfway in his lap).

~~~~

In another four months there’s Barcelona, which is the same, except that Benny doesn’t lose to the Bulgarian (and that the setting is beautiful, instead of American). The _rest_ is the same. Beth determinedly sipping her tea, Benny socializing at the other side of the room, the drumming of his fingers the only sign he knows that she's there, waiting to tear his heart out in thirteen hours.

"You alright?” Townes asks, alighting across from her.

“On or off the record?” Beth asks, lips curving.

“Off. Doesn't that hurt?"

He gestures to her tea, still steaming and already one-third empty.

"No."

It's not a brush-off, just the truth. (She needs it to burn going down.)

He smiles crookedly. "Alright. Any thoughts on your upcoming opponent?”

"No."

It comes out too clipped (she’s got plenty of thoughts on southern blondes), but Townes doesn’t poke.

"Okay."

He sets his hands down on the table in front of him. Beth observes that he declines to fidget with the napkin, or twirl a toothpick between his fingers. He is grounded in a way that other men are not (that Benny is not). Only his eyes move, to meet hers. 

"I heard a rumor you went to stay with him in New York." His expression reminds her of Jolene (I _know_ you did not go and live in a basement with some lily-white motherfucker!). She fights down the smile like it’s another scalding mouthful.

"Practice for Moscow." 

Townes nods introspectively and wishes her the best of luck with a grin that says he knows she doesn't need it.

Benny is not a clean kill. He keeps the audience from breathing for a half-hour longer than Beth would have liked, plays in a way that’s so unlike himself that she actually has to think about it. 

Still, he’s less a distraction eight squares away than thirty, or maybe it’s just that her strategy to eviscerate him (shimmering silvery on the ceiling) is more distracting than his stupid face.

The handshake, though… the handshake is like a livewire.

She presses her palm against her skirt, turns to accept the congratulations and decline the champagne, and the wire is still there, with Benny at the end of it, and the other end braided into her organs. 

The crowd melts away eventually, and then it’s just Benny Watts, hat in hand, leaning back on the bannister with an artificial palm (or maybe a real one, actually) brushing his ridiculous duster.

“Let me buy you a tea.” 

"A tea."

"Isn't that what you want?"

“Winner buys,” Beth says, because it is what she wants, (needs, even) and he probably shouldn't know it.

“Nope. I insist."

He presses his hat back onto his head, all ease and bravado and stupid theatre, like he was in New York, and Ohio, hell, in Cincinnati. Benny Watts probably emerged from the womb with a ten-tonne ego.

"Any preference?”

“Anything but mint.”

His mouth curves, and he’s thinking, same as she is, about the brown bag in his top cupboard. _Bulk is cheaper_ , Benny explained, when she asked him why he had a lifetime supply of peppermint tea and no eggs.

The booth is in the corner, and the tea is cinnamon. Benny gets a danish too (to desecrate, Beth assumes).

“No one asked me about New York.” Beth says to the headlights in the window, a curious frown flickering on her brow.

“No?” Benny dunks half his danish into his tea and withdraws something soggy and unrecognizable. “Guess no one asked me either.” 

He shrugs, and begins lowering the once-a-dessert into his mouth. Beth rescues the dry half from his napkin while he isn't looking.

“Really. I would have thought that mentioning you to the _Times_ after Moscow might have earned you a call or three.”

“Just two.” His mouth is still half full. “I provided a sketch of our professional relationship… gestures, not details. Didn’t want it to seem…”

He scratches at his moustache, looks pensively into the middle distance.

“You didn't want it to seem like we were fucking?”

“God, Harmon.”

He shakes his head.

“What?”

“Just… you.”

The moment is almost soft. 

Then, “Did you take my danish?”

Beth pauses in the act of dabbing her mouth on a napkin. 

“What?” 

He snatches the napkin out of her hand, as if he expects to find more than a lip-print, and then drops on the table in disgust.

“Okay.” He nods at her, eyes narrowed. “I see.”

She props her chin on the heel of her hand so she can cover her smirk with her fingers.

“Thank you Benny Watts, five-time U.S. Champion, for molding me with your wisdom into the youngest Grandmaster alive. In return, I will take your danish and your dignity.”

“You don’t have any other worldly assets for me to take. Except the ticket-collector.”

“You _love_ that fucking car, and when you’ve tried flying in a Cessna you’ll remember that. Now. Since there’s no longer a reason for me to stay”-- Benny unfolds to his feet--“let me escort you back home to your cheque.”

They take the elevator in companionable silence (Benny looks up the whole time like he’s still a little fascinated by the concept). She steals a glance at his face as he follows her down the hallway, trying to get a feel for his play, and he only raises his eyebrows.

When they reach her room, he waits chivalrously behind the threshold.

“Goodnight, Harmon.”

She nods, suddenly mute, and thinks maybe that’ll be it, just that. She's making her peace with it when he catches the door between them, half-closed.

“You know, I thought about it, and you know what the problem is?”

“You think too highly of yourself to compromise?” (The words come so much _easier_ , when he gives her an opening.)

“Hmm, except you wrung the last drops of self-esteem out of me two hours ago. Publicly."

She tilts her head. “What's the problem, Benny?”

He licks his lips. The light of the hallway leaks around the edges of him, filling the space between his jaw and his shoulder, his arm and his ribs, outlining the sharpness of his angles. His exhale is visible, more than audible.

“No one else is any good.” 

“At chess?” 

There is a short silence, and it’s enough for the atmosphere to evolve, or maybe this has been hanging over them all day, all month, all ever since fucking Ohio.

“At any of it.” 

Beth has seen the look he’s wearing before (and even if she hadn’t, they’re standing in the door of her room, it’s eleven p.m., and she spent six to nine p.m. maiming him, metaphorically). For an instant, maybe for a couple seconds, she’s tempted.

It passes.

“Well.” She shrugs, deliberately casual. “Seemed like you had fun in Dallas.”

“In…” He pinches the bridge of his nose almost violently. “That--”

“Thanks for the tea, Benny,” she says, and closes the door before he can reply.

~~~~

Benny takes the long way back to his room (gives the bar a considering glance, and then has a vivid memory of delivering a sanctimonious lecture on _emotional drinking_ and decides a whiskey would be a bit hypocritical.

He goes out to the pool-deck instead, and instead of drinking, smokes. It works for about two minutes, which is the same amount of time it takes for tall-dark-and-handsome reporter boy, what’s-his-name, _Townes_ , to catch his eye (and apparently disregard what it’s saying, which is an unequivocal "fuck off"). 

Townes walks over, barefoot and handsome and irritating, with a glass of _champagne_ , or something. The nosey fuck.

“Benny Watts. What's new?”

Benny grinds out his cigarette.

“You saw the match.” 

“I mean since the match,” Townes says, setting down his glass and taking a couple steps out on the jewel-green tile to peer into the pool. Even his silhouette is graceful; the thickness of the air doesn’t frizz his curls or dampen his shirt (a near-white that sets off the warmth of his skin). Benny frowns at it.

Townes looks back over his shoulder. “Nothing?”

“Why are you asking?”

Townes smiles graciously.

“No particular reason.” He shrugs with his hands in his pockets. “Did you and Beth talk?"

Benny ignores the question.

"She really lit up, when you called her in Moscow.”

“That so.” 

“Mhm. Thought maybe you two were close.”

Benny spreads his hands. “And? Still think so?”

“I think it's intriguing to watch you two circle each other. Like sharks.” He flashes a grin.

Benny had felt a smouldering dislike for Townes, before. Now he can fairly say he hates him.

“I'm thrilled to be starring in your personal nature documentary."

“Well, there’s no one else of a calibre worth watching, if I’m honest.”

“Yep.” He suddenly, badly, needs another cigarette. He balls his left hand into a fist instead, presses his knuckles one by one with his thumb.

“She likes wiping the floor with you, in particular." Townes gives Benny what he probably thinks is a significant look. “I suspect it’s just because you’re the only one here good enough to be worth beating."

Benny, pointedly, does not respond. He ignores Townes studiously until he smiles again and drifts away.

After another fifteen minutes mulling on the foolish optimism of a Sunday plane ticket, Benny splashes some muggy pool water on his neck, and goes to bed.

Beth finds him after the final, glowing with victory. She wears her titles in a way that is more than metaphorical; he can almost see the crown glittering above the crimson sweep of her hair.

“Good match.”

“Thanks. Can I come in?”

“Be my guest.” There’s more than a little sarcasm in his sweeping bow.

“Nice robe,” she quips.

Like she isn't the one who just barged in, like she hasn’t seen him in less. From an _array_ of different angles. He shakes that image out of his head before it has consequences and sits down.

"Thanks. It came with the room."

She kicks her heels off and sits in the chair across from his.

“Why are you pissed, Benny?”

“I'm not pissed.”

“You’re quiet.”

“You could stand to be a bit more conversational.”

“That's not really something a conversational person says to people.”

“Maybe I don't want to talk to you.” He cocks his head. “I kinda tried that last night, didn’t I?”

She glares. 

“Well?”

Beth opens her mouth, and Benny knows damn well nothing's gonna come out of it. _"I just wanted to see you one more time"_? Not a chance in hell. (To be fair, he wouldn't say it either.)

He leans over and kisses her, to save her the trouble of concocting a reply.

Beth pulls herself to her feet by the collar of his robe and falls back half a step into the table, shimmying up the crisp white fabric of her dress so she can wrap her legs around him. 

“Easy,” he says roughly, (like he isn’t already fucking gone, like he isn’t hiking her legs up around his waist and setting her down in the middle of the table, desk, whatever-it-is with his pulse beating teenager-rapid in all the places it shouldn’t be). He taps her on the side of the legs pressed tight to the bare skin of his hips, _let-go_ , and she does, sulkily.

“This is not a great idea,” he gets out, bracing himself over her on the desk, his left hand hovering over her knee.

“Better idea than playing me again in Amsterdam, though," Beth says, and takes a generous fistful of hair (like she really needs to hold him still, like Benny has better places to be than getting Beth Harmon out of her panties on the hotel furniture). She tugs on it when he tries to move down, lips ghosting over her ribcage. “Not now. Go get a condom.”

“Aren’t we bossy?”

He can't resent it for more than half a minute, though, because the little gasp she makes at the first thrust almost kills him, and then she throws a hand back against the wall and bucks her hips up to meet him like a fucking wildcat. Also, she pushes over the lamp, which shatters magnificently on the floor.

“I'm making you pay my deposit,” he snarls into her hair.

“Money to spare,” Beth pants, digging nails into his back. “Go faster.”

They recover in his bed, half-clothed and sticky, the air warm with the salt-sweet smell of Beth's skin under her Chanel No. 5.

“What was that?” he asks, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. 

“A mistake,” Beth says to the ceiling. A strand of hair is stuck to her cheek; her cheek is dimpled with a smile that reaches all the way to her eyes.

He clears his throat.

“Yeah, probably.”

Then the bed creaks beside him and Beth is up, shimmying her underwear back on, and then leaning to adjust her lipstick in the half-reflective surface of the TV (her left stocking has a disastrous run from heel to thigh).

“Are you going to Amsterdam?” 

“I might not be world champion but I’m not quite washed up yet, Harmon.”

She turns, hair restored, face serious. “Then I’ll see you there. Probably the final, unless Petrov has a good day.”

He catches her by the arm before she can step into her heels.

“Beth.”

“Benny." She crosses her arms over her chest. "Come to Kentucky.”

“Come to New York.”

“No.”

“No.”

“Then I’ll see you in Amsterdam,” Beth says, and pats him sweetly on the cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> listen, what if constant bickering WAS their happily ever after? I like them Because They Are Mean and I can't help it.
> 
> Do you also have an infinite craving for women displaying intellectual dominance? leave a comment & commiserate with me.
> 
> and let's be [tumblr friends](https://athousandvictories.tumblr.com/)


End file.
